Nox Inanisque
by Murazor
Summary: Louise Vallière summons a powerful and not entirely sane individual from another world, rather than a powerless and semi-perverted Japanese teenager, with potentially devastating consequences for herself and all of Halkeginia.
1. Chapter 1

_Nox Inanisque is another crossover in which Louise Summons Yet Another Wacky Familiar, a fic genre that is rapidly approaching the saturation levels of the YAHF (Buffy) or fukufic (Sailor Moon x Ranma 1/2) sub-genres. Still, for all that Familiar of Zero has been used a lot in the last couple of years, Halkeginia makes for a decent playground and I hope to offer a tale that, if not amazing, manages to be decently entertaining. Some liberties have been taken with both canons to make them fit better together, but every effort has been made to be as respectful as possible to both sources. _

_Also, while these disclaimers have no legal value whatsoever, I'd like to state that I don't own Wakfu or Familiar of Zero/Zero no Tsukaima._

* * *

><p>Murazor Presents<p>

**NOX INANISQUE (Night and Void)**

_A Familiar of Zero x Wakfu crossover**  
><strong> _

** Chapter 1** - _The kiss, the dragon and the thief._

And it came to pass that Noximilien Coxen -failed inventor, failed mage, failed husband, failed father- came to the tombs of his dead family for the first time in two hundred years, following his defeat at the hands of Yugo the Eliatrope. There, haunted by the failure in his quest to change history and go back to the days in which his loved ones still lived, tortured by the realization of his own madness and the memory of countless atrocities committed in the pursuit of his goals, he prayed.

It was a prayer made without hope and born of desperation, rather than faith for Noximilien had rejected the authority of Xelor long before and the lord of time is a grim, sad god with little use for mercy. But with the last of the stolen lifeforce that sustained his own withered spark fading away, he had no choice but to beg for clemency and a chance to meet with his family in the divine land of Ingloriom.

What happened next... might have been the result of blind chance. Or mayhaps it was the strange mercy of Xelor, for strange indeed are the ways of the Twelve and strangest of them all is the Master of the Great Hourglass. Regardless of the why, the what is all that is truly relevant to this tale.

Tendrils of magic sent out to explore the universe in wings of grief and hopelessness, found what they were looking for in Noximilien Coxen's plea. With the first part of its task complete, the magic prepared to bring the chosen one before its master and so a portal formed in front of the time mage's prone figure and sucked him in, since he was too weak now to attempt to resist the powerful magical summons.

In this manner, Noximilien the Clockmaker -best known to his enemies and the world at large as Nox- was taken from the World of the Twelve to find his fate in a distant realm.

* * *

><p>Sunset approached and a cold wind had started blowing from the east, making it unpleasant to stand still. However, not one of the scions of nobility attending the Springtime Summoning Ritual moved. Except for the short, pink-haired girl who muttered furiously and waved her wand as she moved around the Circle of Summoning, it was as if time had decided to stand still.<p>

This was the fourth time that Louise Françoise le Blanc de La Vallière tried to complete the ritual. Fourth and last, since traditions older than history itself stated that the sacred Circle could only be used four times in the lifetime of a noble, once for each of Founder Brimir's familiars.

Of the many, _many_ thousands of magicians who had used it over twenty generations of man, a few hundred had failed once because their will had flagged in the critical moment or their incantation been interrupted by a sudden coughing fit. Exactly twenty three in the same period had failed twice. And now Louise, heir of the noblest bloodlines in the kingdom and daughter of magicians of great power and greater renown, was but the third to fail thrice.

There was no list of those who failed four times, because those who did were the _fausse_, the false bloods, whose existence meant the shame of an entire bloodline. In older, less civilized days, the church had considered the fausse abominations cursed by Brimir himself and dealt with them. Harshly. That hadn't changed until after the Ottonian heresy and the ascension of the Germanian plutarchs. Even in this day and age, the fate of a noble who was discovered to be fausse was... unenviable, to put it in the mildest possible terms.

And those in attendance were certain that Louise would fail once again. Well, as a matter of fact, they had been all but certain of her failure long before she had made her first attempt. After all, when one manages to turn every spell from levitation to warming water into an explosion, it becomes remarkably difficult to get people to believe in your skill.

However, as Louise had failed to get even the smallest reaction out of the holy relic, despite her increasingly frantic spellcasting, it had dawned in the other students of the Tristain Academy of Magic that this meant both the fall of one of their number from the ranks of the blessed and the shame of one of the greatest noble lines of the realm. With that chilling realization, even the sharpest tongues and the cruelest hearts had decided without deliberation that mockery would be an insult to the solemnity of the hour and...

At this point, the collective train of thought was derailed when Vallière completed the incantantion for the last time and finally managed to get the Circle of Summoning to do something. Keen eyes and quick minds, however, quickly grasped that while the glowing of the Elemental Pentagon inscribed inside the circle was perfectly normal, the angrily red glow of the standing stones that marked the tips of the Pentagon most definitely wasn't.

All sense of propriety overruled by survival instincts that had grown hyper-sensitive over a year of proximity to Louise's explosions, much diving for cover ensued.

Vallière who had been looking in wonder her triumph, feeling hope replace the despair that had threatened to crush her heart moments before, turned to protest the unsightly behaviour of her peers.

That was when it happened.

* * *

><p>It wasn't one of Vallière's explosions as the cowering students had feared. Rather, it was a pillar of light that erupted out of the Circle, bright as the sun and tall as the sky. However, the release of energy was nothing short of titanic in scale -every drop of willpower that Louise had been able to provide gathered and concentrated by the summoning artifact to bring the destined familiar from the other side of an abyss of time and space- and the shockwave that it caused floored everyone still standing and deafened everyone with the roar of a hundred thunderclaps.<p>

Jean Colbert, whose pre-academic professional career and general fascination with chemistry had granted him some handy experience in dealing with the aftereffects of loud and noisy, was the first to recover. He stood up and started assessing the extent of the damage, while dusting himself off.

Students? Dazed and still down the lot of them, but no readily apparent injuries to be seen. Good enough.

Familiars? Scared out of their minds and some of them running around, but seemingly uninjured. Good.

The holy Circle of Summoning? Shrouded by a cloud of dust. Colbert pointed his staff up and with a trickle of willpower, manipulated the temperature of the air to turn the cold afternoon breeze into a nice, strong wind that blew away the dust in short order.

Fortunately, the image of a crater in the place of the relic that had briefly flashed through his mind turned out to be inaccurate. The stones and the marble platform with the elemental pentagon still stood, just like they had since the days of the Founder, except for the shape that now rested in the center of the circle and the blue flowers that now ringed the structure. Admittedly, the latter were unexpected, and hence worrisome. Just to be on the safe side, Colbert poked one of them with the tip of his staff.

Since it failed to explode, release a cloud of poisonous pollen (a long story), start talking (a longer story) or mutate into a vine-tentacled abomination (a rather short story, actually, but one that isn't relevant to this tale), the professor decided that it was probably safe enough to ignore the plantlife, enter the circle and check from up close what had been summoned by Vallière's lightshow.

His first impression had been that the new familiar was man-shaped, which he confirmed now that he was close enough. In fact, it looked like an... embalmed corpse with a metal mask hiding the face and armor of some kind protecting the chest, while bandages covered the rest of the body. Bizarre. Perhaps not the strangest creature ever summoned, since the old chronicles had recorded some truly outlandish familiars, such as goblins, hydras or krakens, but...

It was the sand flowing from inside the bandages that refreshed Colbert's memory. It also caused a chill to run down his spine and made him step back.

_Impossible_, whispered a part of his mind.

But the description matched too perfectly for it to be anything else. Information about these things was scarce, since it required dabbling in realms of blasphemous magic, but Saint Ignatius' Annals of the Fourth Crusade gave a good overview. Somehow Vallière had summoned a mummy, one of the unliving guardians of the sky-tombs of the ancient shaman-kings of Ptah. Supposing that they survived the next few minutes, the poor girl was probably going to fall under inquisitorial scrutiny and that was...

... that was irrelevant, since there was no telling if they were going to survive at all.

The abomination was still inactive, Founder be praised, but there was no way to say how long it was going to continue like that. First things first, Vallière had to complete the ritual and bind the monster as her familiar. It wasn't much of a hope, but perhaps this would be enough to replace the geas that must have been broken in order to pull a mummy out of the sky-tomb it had been created to guard. If it turned out that it wasn't... Well, Saint Ignatius' work detailed in some detail the three days' rampage of one of these things against Albionese crusaders who had damaged its skytomb to resupply their vessels with Windstones.

It hadn't been pretty. In the slightest. And the kicker was that THAT mummy hadn't been defeated by the Crusaders, but by an elven army. That had taken severe casualties doing so.

"Miss Vallière!" And he was quite proud of himself. His voice hadn't even quivered.

He got a groan for an answer. Turning his head, he saw the girl advancing towards the circle on unsteady legs, under the hostile gazes of the rest of students.

"Miss Vallière, if you could come here and complete the..." He had turned his head just in time to see the mummy's hand twitch. Colbert gulped and continued, his voice now a couple octaves higher in pitch. "Complete the ritual now, please. It is important."

* * *

><p><em>The professor looks unwell<em>, Louise thought, while biting the inside of her cheek.

It just wasn't fair. She worked harder than any of the morons who were glaring at her, so why couldn't she ever get a spell to work right.

To date, _this_ had been her greatest success in terms of magic. Which was just depressing to think about. But, hey, strange beam of light or not she had apparently managed to summon some kind of familiar, so this was definitely one for the win column. _And let's hope that Mother agrees._

Alas, optimism deserted her as soon as she got a clear view of what magic had delivered her. Tears welling up in her eyes, she turned to face professor Colbert with a scowl in her face,

"I know what it looks like, Miss Vallière, but it is almost certainly alive. I am not mocking you. And it is of the utmost importance that you brand it right now," said Colbert in unusually blunt manner. "These creatures are... dangerous and very powerful, but they are beholden to the protection of their master, so if you make it your familiar, it will obey you in all things."

"Powerful?"

"Extremely. It is really quite important that you use Contract Familiar now."

Although the others had apparently decided to keep their distance, having chosen discretion over valor in matters concerning the Zero and magic, the conversation had been loud enough for them to overheard. And, if the muttering was any indication, the hysteria of the usually mild-mannered professor Colbert was making everyone nervous.

"Professor, if that thing is so strong, there is no way that a screw-up like Vall... Aaaagh! Put it out! Put it out!"

Blinking in disbelief, Louise confirmed that yes, her eyes hadn't deceived her. Mid-way through the tirade of Montmorency the Fragance, Colbert had whipped his wand towards her and left the young water mage standing in the center of a narrow ring of fire.

"Miss Montmorency, please don't move. And shut up, because if you say another word it will be your eyebrows. Are we clear? Good. We can talk later about polite behaviour and basic courtesy, but right now I think that it is better if we deal with the small matter of the deadly creature that may wake up at any moment and Kill. Us. All, if we don't let Miss Vallière concentrate. Miss Vallière, if it is all the same to you, do you mind doing this now?"

Louise nodded, wiped her tears with her sleeve and advanced towards the... towards her familiar. Any doubts she might have harboured about this being some cruel joke prepared to taunt her had been dispelled and her questions could wait. Right now, it was her duty twice over to form the magic contract and ensure everyone's safety...

She knelt, already muttering the spell. "Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers! Grant your blessing upon this humble creature and make it my familiar!"

Now to seal the contract with a kiss...

Naturally, it was just then, with Louise's lips hovering a few centimeters above the creature's head, that the eyes of its mask opened with the faint sound of metal sliding over metal to reveal twin pools of bottomless blue.

She recoiled in shock and tried to move away, but the thing jerked into movement faster than she had thought possible. A hand, cold despite the bandages wrapping it, closed around her throat. There was a flash and she suddenly found herself being held in mid-air, a good dozen meters above the ground.

And then It spoke with a voice that was like the chime of a broken bell, but rather than addressing her it craned its neck hither and thither, as if looking for someone in the crowd below.

"Show yourself, Yugo!"

And then professor Colbert struck.

* * *

><p>Celestial Lance was a spell that combined the effects of Hell Blast (fire-fire attack spell that generated extremely high temperature flames) and Fire Lance (fire-fire-air spell that focused fire in a narrow stream). The result: a beam of blue-white fire, potent enough to incinerate a soldier in full armour from a distance of five hundred steps. Overall, one of the deadliest triangle spells in existence.<p>

Seeing it splash harmlessly against a shimmering barrier that the mummy raised with a wave of his free hand was, to put it in the mildest possible terms, discouraging for professor Colbert. Nevertheless, at least it seemed to have been effective in getting the attention of the monster, since the now half-closed eyeholes of its mask were looking straight at him. It was quite uncanny how he could tell that it was frowning, despite the lack of facial features.

"Run for it! I'll hold it off! Alert the headmaster!"

The rustling and shouting told him that at least some of the students had decided to obey him, but he didn't dare to avert his gaze for even a second, just in case the mummy disappeared aga...

It disappeared again in a flash of blue light. _How was it doing that?_

Another flash behind himself. Colbert whirled and crouched down on one knee, while loosing a hastily conjured Fire Bolt. Not much of a spell against an enemy of this caliber, but there hadn't been time to muster willpower for anything greater than that. This time, instead of the barrier, the mummy deflected the bolt with a lazy backhand, without moving from the spot or loosening the hold on Miss Vallière's throat (who was still kicking and beating her captor to no avail, in spite of her face turning an alarming shade of purple).

Still crouching and focused in the mummy, the professor started gathering willpower to counter the thing's next move. A dozen seconds later, however, the mummy still seemed quite pleased with the impromptu lull and raised the arm holding Vallière until she was level with its face. It observed her intently for a couple heartbeats and then opened its hand and let her fall. Before she touched the floor, Colbert caught her with his magic and levitated her well away from the circle.

"Commendable."

The same echoing, metallic voice from before.

"What?"

"You left yourself open to spare the young lady harm. Foolish, but commendable."

Colbert offered no answer and wracked his head for the specific wording of the section of the Annals that described mummies in an attempt to understand this behaviour. If what Saint Ignatius had written about the one that had wiped out the Albionese contingent was half-way accurate, that one had been too busy crushing humans with avalanches and summoning sandstorms to strip fresh from bone to do much talking. He was also quite sure that the tale hadn't mentioned that mummies were capable of levitation. Or moving from place to place in the blink of an eye.

_Is it just me or is it starting to seem that I have made some kind of horrible mistake?_

"Well, if we are done with the traditional acts of introductory violence, I propose that we skip the next few chapters and rush to the climax," continued the thing, now with an incongruously chirpy tone of voice, while moving in a slow circle around Colbert, arms crossed behind his back.

"Hmmm?"

"I don't know who you people are and, frankly, I don't want to know. And you don't know who I am or you wouldn't have brought the children here. This is obviously a mistake of some kind and an easily solved one, at that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Send me back to the tombs."

"What tombs?" Had his first guess been right, after all? At this point, professor Colbert was quite flabbergasted by the strange behaviour of the mummy. This thing was nothing like the feral engine of destruction that his books had described, even if what it proposed was impossible.

"The place from which I was kidnapped by your portal."

"The familiar summoning ritual cannot be reversed. It is not just sacrilegious. It is impossible."

The mummy made a show of inspecting his arms, before answering, now with a clear note of irritation in its voice.

"You have me mistaken with a drheller, my good sir. Or with a fool, since we stand inside an obviously functional portal generator and opening a way back to the place I want to go to is just a matter of reversing the flow of energy. So... are we going to do this the easy, nice way or the nasty and painful way"

"I don't..."

"Nasty and painful it is, then."

Colbert immediately started to back away, while the mummy floated high above the ground and somehow summoned to its hand an odd-looking sword.

Which he then used to fire a beam of blue light towards Colbert, which the professor managed to deflect with an angled Fire Wall, but still got hit by the shockwave of the ensuing explosion.

And that's when Jean Colbert discovered something fascinating, the implications of which led to much pondering for the months to come.

As a former soldier, Colbert was no stranger to the concept of taking enemies by surprise through use of stealth. As a natural philosopher, Colbert was aware of the fact that sound travels at specific speeds.

But he had never realized that in addition to the traditional concept of stealth as a careful, slow approach in which one tried to make as little noise as possible, it was entirely possible for a sufficiently swift projectile to reach its target unheard just by being faster than the sounds it caused. This he discovered when a projectile formed by approximately two tons of angry, blue reptile hit his enemy with a dive-bomb that knocked the mummy out of the sky.

* * *

><p>In the whole, it had been a pretty bad day, perhaps the second worst in a long and quite unhappy life. So far he had been beaten around by that pesky kid and his friend the little dragon (<em>bless their brave little hearts!<em>), accomplished the impossible only to find that that wasn't quite good enough, seen the hope that had sustained him for two centuries turn to dust, realized that he was probably a bit crazier than he had thought (_no, really?_), been rudely kidnapped from the place in which he had decided to die (_first good decision in ages_) and then, when he had decided to make his kidnappers fight it out, something had hit him so hard that it actually had hurt. A lot (_man up, you big crybaby!_).

It seemed that he was destined to die in pain and alone.

_Just you and me, as usual._

What did just hit me?

_Why don't you open your eyes? That sounds like a good first step._

Nox opened his eyes just a crack. He saw teeth. Big, sharp teeth and lots of them. Very close to his face, too. He opened his eyes fully and saw gleaming blue scales covering a large reptilian head.

Dragon?

_Seems so. And this one is neither short stuff, nor the old bastard._

It was too great a coincidence to be sheer chance. Maybe the death of Grougaloragran had driven other dragons out of hiding?

No matter. Mysteries were for the living to puzzle out and he was, by fate and choice, a dead man walking. Nox jumped out of the hole that his impact had opened in the ground and reappeared ten meters up in the air, straight above the dragon's head. The creature's presence may speed things along, but he was still going to go out on his own terms. He would burn out the last of his energy reserve fighting and make these strange fellows regret messing around with things they clearly didn't understand. Maybe this way they would learn the lesson that Galanthe had tried to teach him so many years ago.

It'd be nice to end things on a good note, after so much evil.

_All futile, all pointless, all for nothing._

How much wakfu left?

_Two dot six five._

About enough for a dozen bolts and a dozen short jumps. Or half a dozen of each. Or for one short stop, if he made it small enough. Lesson time.

* * *

><p>As far as rhyme dragons go, Irukuku was nothing special. She wasn't big and strong, like Aunt Nogalacna; slender and fleet-winged, like Grandmother Sorivogu; or skilled with magic, like Big Brother Ariphas. Truly, the only remotely special things about her were her color and her nose.<p>

Her elders had told her that when she had hatched, Great-Grandfather Phaeris had spoken clearly for the first time in three hundred seasons. He had said that her color meant that she was touched by the Goddess and that it was an omen of great things to come. Then, he had started ranting about the Lost and crying for his lost sister, and the younger dragons had been left in doubt. Was the fate of the dragonette as the Eldest had foretold or was it just another phantom spawned by the madness that had claimed the greatest of them all? There was no answer and when Phaeris finally succumbed to illness and old age not long afterwards, the chance of getting them disappeared.

Thus, Irukuku had grown with everyone waiting for a sign -any sign- of this great destiny that supposedly awaited her. But there had been nothing, except for her powerful ability to feel the blue, the strongest of any dragon born in the last three generations. All could see the essence of life with some effort and training and some could even hear it as a whisper or a song in the wing, but she could smell it and perceive it all with unmatched depth of detail.

She could identify people she couldn't see just by the scent of their souls (much to the unabated frustration of Cousin Berchofis, who had always liked pranking the other dragonets with his mastery of the shape-change but had never managed to fool her) and she could also smell the subtle nuances of aroma that betrayed what anyone was feeling. Fear, pain, sorrow, joy, anger, longing... she knew them all and that's why she had leaped through when the portal had come for her. Grandmother had recognized it for what it was and warned her against crossing it, but she had smelled in the magic of the portal the grief that consumed the mage who had created it. Half out of pity and half out of curiosity, Irukuku had decided to answer the call. And that was how she had met Tabitha.

Even though it had been only a few hours, between her nose and the familiar bond she now knew as much as anyone had ever known about the true nature of the mage child. Her choice might have been impulsive, but she didn't regret it. It might not be the Goddess-blessed covenant of Great-Grandfather's tales, but... it was close enough and so Irukuku acquiesced to the little human's demands of staying silent in front of all others and accepted her "official" name without fuss. Sylphid had a nice ring to it, anyways.

And she had always wanted to meet humans.

Then, she had smelled something like she had never perceived before. It was as if someone had taken several life-forces, mixed them all in a noxious melange, left the result to rot in the pot and further tainted it all with sorrow and terror. It was disgusting. Worse, it was unnatural.

She had seen from high up that the origin was a... thing that seemed to be strangling one of the young humans and fighting one of the older humans, the kindly old instructor with scent of curiosity and old regret. After explaining the situation to Tabitha, getting reluctant permission to get involved and a grand dive of three thousand meters, she had hit the thing hard enough to leave an impact crater in the ground.

That should have been the end of it.

But it seemed that the stinky brute didn't care to play with sensible rules and, just a few moments after the crash, had opened the eyes of his metal face and done something. She had felt his energy pressing against hers and, in an instant, he had disappeared from under her and reappeared above her. Not fair.

* * *

><p>Dragon gets it, then.<p>

_She is going to kick the crap out of you!_

Nox extended his arm and started charging wakfu in the emitter in his right hand, allowing it to build up an ominous glow before releasing a blue energy orb. It hit the young dragon in the left foreleg, causing a smallish explosion and a satisfyingly loud cry of pain. She collapsed in the bottom of the hole, apparently in no hurry to get up and keep fighting which, if he were to be honest with himself, Nox found a refreshing change after Grougaloragran and Yugo's dragonet friend. At the same time, from the corner of his eye, he saw the bald fire user let loose an impressively large ball of flame towards him.

He allowed the fireball to hit him dead on (show-off!) and his reward was to see the man's shoulders sag in frustration, when he emerged unharmed from the fire. Credit where credit's due, though. He clearly knew by now that he was facing an enemy much stronger than himself and he still insisted in fighting, perhaps because he wanted to buy time for the brats he had told to run away. Nox nodded to himself. After today, the man would learn not to fool around with things beyond his ken and become a better...

A blast of intense cold magic hit him, covering his body with a thin layer of frost and interrupting his musings. The attack, he could tell from the concentration and amount of its magic energy, had been meant as a killing blow. Indeed, if he still had bodily fluids to freeze, he would have probably perished then and there (more's the pity). More importantly, the attack hadn't come from either of his known opponents, but from above.

He freed himself from the ice with an omnidirectional blast and looked up, but didn't find her until she attacked with a rain of razor-sharp icicles. She had hidden in the Sun's brightness (clever) and, when he finally looked in her direction, she summoned ice crystals around herself to increase the brightness and blind him (really clever). Alas, blinding him did nothing to stop the servomechanisms in his arm from taking aim and firing an energy bolt that forced her to dive out of the way.

The third challenger turned out to be a small, blue-haired girl, holding a wooden staff that looked too large for her. She seemed upset.

_Geez, I wonder why?_

* * *

><p>With the monster distracted by young miss Tabitha's attacks, Colbert had been preparing something stronger and, he hoped, more effective than his last fireball. But in the last moment he decided to chant something <em>different<em>, rather than waste energy in yet another Celestial Lance. Air around the mummy was cooled and heated according to a pattern supplied by the professor's mind and wind picked up. In a matter of instants, a horrifically powerful tornado formed. And his enemy had been caught and was now being buffeted around by the magical winds, thrashing like a ragdoll.

The thing tried to escape. There was a flash of blue light and, for a heartbeat, it seemed to turn indistinct, almost transparent. But the moment passed and when it did, the mummy was still a captive of the winds. The fire mage didn't stop to think about the reasons behind this failure. He merely let old fighting instincts take over and prepared his will for an attack now that his foe seemed unable to escape or retaliate.

"Burn, you bastard," he muttered, before launching his attack.

The jet of fire that erupted from the tip of the old soldier's wand was a weak thing at first, which had no effect and garnered no reaction from the target when it hit. But Colbert kept up and added a second fire to his spell. Still no reaction, but the flames grew larger. And hotter. From the corner of his eye he saw miss Tabitha stop her attacks and descend towards her familiar, removing herself from Jean's line of fire.

And so Colbert added a third fire. The jet of flame grew even more powerful, until it was a thin column of white hot fire. And this was enough to finally get a reaction. A yelp of pain, barely heard over the roar of the fires. Just that. But just that was enough to thrill the professor like nothing else had since the days in which being the Flame Snake had been something to be proud of.

He let his mind and soul go back to the days in which he hadn't been just a kindly professor, but a defender of the faith. He had been stupid then. And gullible. But he had been fearsome in magic and strength of purpose, too, and before his loyalty was betrayed he had started walking the hard road towards the highest level possible of arcane accomplishment, all to become a better servant for church and country. He had stopped then, after blind stupidity had turned a village into charcoal and ash.

But he still remembered the lessons and now, in defense of something infinitely greater than the interests of a corrupt church, he forced himself to walk the last few steps towards square magic. And a fourth fire was added, giving Colbert's flame the strength of sixteen.

"Burn, I say!"

And burn it did. Just for the span of a few moments, hell came to Earth and the monster caught in the center of the hellfire, howled like the damned. With gritted teeth and his will stretched to the breaking point, Colbert kept up the tetramagic attack for a dozen heartbeats, until his will and body gave and he fell on his knees. Exhausted as he was, he still smiled when he saw the creature fall from the sky like a blaze. And, exhausted as he was, he could do nothing when he saw his foe get up and look at him directly through those expresionless blue eyes. The bandages that covered it were still burning in places. There were points in which its armor had been melted away by the magic fire. And, in spite of it all, it still stood.

"That actually hurt, you know. A lot," it said with its chime-like voice, while bringing its hands close to each other. "And I think that I have had quite enough of that. Let us bring an end to this tale of bravery and foolishness."

There was a flash of light.

And the world stopped.

* * *

><p>Louise de La Vallière was in considerable pain after being almost strangled, on top of severe emotional distress. She wanted to cry, to shout, to do... anything that might assuage the terror that gripped her heart and provide some relief. But there was nothing she could do at the moment. Literally.<p>

She couldn't cry or shout. She couldn't speak. _She couldn't even feel her own heartbeat_.

Her entire body was petrified, just like the world around her. .

She was completely paralyzed, a prisoner inside her own unmoving flesh. And she wasn't the only victim in this unnatural tableu. Professor Colbert and Kirche's weird friend and her dragon familiar were also frozen where they stood. Even the wind had stopped blowing.

As a matter of fact, the only thing that moved in this still world was the thing she had summoned. It was now kneeling in front of professor Colbert, talking to him. She could hear its horrible high-pitched voice, but she couldn't understand its words.

_Founder, what have I done?_ she thought. But, of course, she knew what she had done. She had failed. She hadn't been fast enough to seal the contract. And thanks to this latest (and perhaps greatest) failure of hers, they were all going to die without a chance to even defend themselves.

She wondered what Mother was going to commission for her tombstone once she learned of all this. _Louise de La Vallière, a Zero to the end_, perhaps?

...

NO!

A fury, angry and terrible, sparked in her heart and burned away the fear. She was a noble. She was Louise Françoise le Blanc de La Vallière, daughter of Karin of the Heavy Wind. She refused to die a failure!

And though her flesh was petrified, her will and magic were still hers to command and so she poured them both into the wand held by her frozen hand, trying to give them shape and purpose through force of mind alone.

* * *

><p>"Well, stranger, I think that that's all I..."<p>

Nox shut up when he felt it. Pressure against the edges of his magic, pushing against the fragile web of wakfu he had used to halt the world in a frozen second. Pressure coming from that little girl he had manhandled a few moments ago. And the pressure had a feel to it that was strangely familiar.

_How can she..._

The first explosion caught him when he was halfway to standing up, along with the backlash of his magic being broken. He was knocked down. _No matter. Just a few moments left now._

The _second_ explosion hit him dead on. Combined with the effects of extreme wakfu depletion, that left him quite dazed and unwilling to even try to stand up again, to the point that when the pink haired girl (with smoke curling up from her hair and clothing) appeared in his field of vision he only blinked rather stupidly a couple of times.

He didn't react when she knelt next to him and didn't register that she was muttering something. However, when she lifted one of his unresisting arms and kissed him in his hand... that registered. As a matter of fact, that and the distant toll of a bell was the last thing Nox felt before darkness claimed him.

* * *

><p>While the extraordinary events in the Tristain Academy of Magic came to a temporary end, less extraordinary events (though no less grave, in their own way) were taking place some one hundred and fifty kilometers to the southwest, near the palatial manor of Duke Gaston Dantes d'Anjou.<p>

Said events were embodied in the forms of a sixty feet tall stone golem moving through the countryside faster than a galloping horse and a laughing figure of indeterminate gender perched upon the golem's shoulder.

It was, of course, none other than Fouquet, the Crumbling Dirt, the famous and infamous mage thief. Perhaps the most successful and certainly the boldest criminal of his time, the scoundrel had become something of a living legend for the commoners of Halkeginia and the hero of many tavern songs sung by those who enjoyed hearing of one willing to flaunt so openly his disregard for the laws of the land.

After a string of robberies in Albion, Romalia and Germania, Fouquet had come to Tristain six months before and announced his presence by assaulting the Royal Mint in broad daylight. That attack had ended with the criminal scum vanishing without a trace after leaving a whole company of the Royal Guard buried to their necks and taking a single silver coin ("for wine" said a rather insulting note found afterwards in the crime scene).

The sheer gall of it all had caused a bit of a panic among both nobility and the rich commoners, who had rushed to reinforce the magical protections of their vaults and armed their guards in largely futile attempts to persuade Fouquet not to attack them. Indeed, some thought that the bandit was taking these displays as a challenge and was making a point out of stealing from those who boasted the mightiest defenses.

Somehow, the criminal mage always knew were to find the vulnerabilities of his targets and how to best exploit them. It was widely believed that Fouquet had to have accomplices, but even after putting all suspects through the most rigorous questioning no clues had been found.

The Duke d'Anjou, Fouquet's victim _de jour_, had put his hopes in the fortress-like design of his manor, his small private army and his strongbox (one of the best designs of its kind, built by the great Trevi of Romalia with metal enchanted to withstand the combined assault of two square mages). Nevertheless, his castle had been infiltrated, his servants fooled and when Fouquet found himself unable to crack the strongbox with his enchantments, he had decided to turn that whole section of the manor into one of his golems, incidentally destroying about a third of the building.

_That_ had happened roughly half an hour before. Half an hour that Fouquet had spent mocking his pursuers and fanning the duke's fury by keeping himself almost-but-not-quite within reach. Every time somebody managed to get within musket range of the thief, the Crumbling Dirt pelted the would-be hero with rocks the size of cantaloupes or opened in the path a mud pit or kicked up a dust cloud.

Finally, shortly before nightfall, the golem accelerated and disappeared from sight in the forested hills near the village of Jura. The duke had his men comb the area and, shortly before sunrise the next day, a stablehand managed to locate a pile of stones which were identified as the material used by Fouquet to create his golem. Unfortunately, no traces of the thief or the stolen strongbox were found afterwards.

One week later, the stablehand who located the stones, a young boy called Sestus, was fired by the rather impoverished duke along with two dozen other servants. Thus, the boy left the D'Anjou estate a mere three weeks after being hired with a month's salary and the leather pouch he had found atop the remains of the golem.

It would be a long time before anyone saw Sestus again.

END CHAPTER 1.

* * *

><p><span>Notes<span>: Since Wakfu hasn't been released in any of the English speaking markets and there are no good online resources in the English speaking sections of the Internet, I include here the most important Wakfu terms and concepts that show up in this chapter.

**Eliatrope:** A race of horned humanoids with the ability to manipulate wakfu to open teleport portals (their powerset is essentially identical to the portal gun from the videogame of the same name) who created the first civilization in the World of Twelve.  
><strong>Noximilien 'Nox' Coxen:<strong> The primary antagonist in the first season of Wakfu. A follower of Xelor with time magic, as well as a genius clockmaker, Nox decided to go back in time after his family died as a result of him growing obsessed with an Eliatrope artifact.  
>Since time travel was absurdly energy intensive, he spent two hundred years killing things to collect their wakfu and storing it in the Eliatrope artifact. In the end, after genociding an entire species, he managed to go back in time, but it didn't work quite as well as he had expected (understatement of the year).<br>Immediately afterwards, he lost control of the Eliatrope artifact, which shut down his wakfu powered clockwork death-bots and he decided to go to the tombs of his wife and sons to die in peace.  
><strong>Wakfu:<strong> A primordial magic/lifeforce that exists in all living things and manifests as a blue energy. Essentially, the Force.  
><strong>World of the Twelve:<strong> The primary setting of Wakfu, a generic fantasy world ruled by twelve gods.  
><strong>Xelor:<strong> The god of time in the Wakfu setting. His followers are also called Xelors very often.  
><strong>Yugo:<strong> The last Eliatrope and kid leader of the hero party that tried to foil Nox plans.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2** - _Reactions and actions._

The drink called coffee was made from small, brown seeds imported at considerable cost from the kingdom of Saba, a semi-legendary human realm located to the east of the elven lands. Halkeginia as a whole had known little about the distant nation until sixty years before, when a daring ambassador dispatched by the sabaean queens had crossed Sahara and sailed to Romalia.

Ibn Battuta, the sabaean diplomat, had presented precious gifts to His Holiness Saint Aegis the thirtieth and regaled the Romalian worthies with tall tales about his travels through the eastern realms, before starting a journey of two years that took him through the courts of the Brimiric nations and lesser nations of Halkeginia.

During those two years, Ibn Battuta's grace and sophisticated exotism led some members of the nobility (those with hopes of becoming renowned for their style) to imitate the ambassador's clothing and customs, much to the disgust of the most conservative circles within the Church.

Now, sixty years later, very little remained of the fashions unwittingly created by the Sabaean's travels, except coffee. After the beverage became the favourite drink of Arthur of Albion, second of his name, coffee had become a symbol of status for nobility and rich bourgeoisie alike and a source of great wealth for the brave merchants who braved the elven blockade to maintain a supply of the valuable seeds.

Louise de La Vallière, if asked for her purely personal opinion, would readily (and vehemently) admit to disliking coffee, despite finding the aroma it exuded during preparation quite pleasant. However, the intense, bitter taste was not at all to her liking. And she found it quite frustrating that any serious conversation between members of her social status were unfailingly accompanied with coffee. All in all, if a certain long dead dignitary had never left his country and corrupted mages with his blasphemous potion, Louise would have been marginally happier with her life.

Alas, courtesy demanded that she accept the steaming cup of coffee that old Osmond was offering her with a polite smile. Considering their relative social standings, refusing something that the old mage had prepared himself, would be _quite_ the insult and she wasn't about to complicate matters for herself by antagonizing a powerful man who was only trying to be a good host.

Osmod, unmindful of the girl's thoughts, handed Tabitha her cup, sat down next to professor Colbert and took a long sip from his own. Louise, like the others, kept her silence and waited for the headmaster to start the conversation. At length, Osmond put down his coffee and began talking.

"While _monsieur_ d'Amboise raised you from the Torpor, I made arrangements with Marteau and a couple hours from now he'll send dinner up here. Unfortunately, the situation will be out of our hands shortly and we should do our best to prepare with what little time we have left."

* * *

><p>Osmond regarded the two young mages over the rim of his cup. Tabitha was, if anything, blanker than usual and, in contrast, Vallière's face was a poem on confusion and worry. The oath that Jacques had made her swear after she had stirred up probably had given her some hint about the magnitude of the mess, but she probably hadn't grasped the full implications yet.<p>

"Miss Vallière... _Louise_... I am sorry, but in this situation I must be direct, to the point of rudeness, to make you understand. I apologize now for the offense that my words are going to cause, but expediency demands that I be curt."

"Sir?"

"You will understand in a few moments. The ramifications of this situation, you see, concern your family as a whole and your mother, in the specific. Though it pains me to speak ill of Karin, as her daughter you must have realized that her concept of what nobility is... doesn't exactly match that of most of our peers, does it?"

Louise nodded silently, a frown in her features.

"She is, in many ways, an extraordinary and admirable person, particularly for a woman. Her mastery of Air magics is perhaps a match for my knowledge of Earth... and I am both the greatest expert in my element that the kingdom has seen in two generations and sixty years older than she is. To call it uncommon skill would be to belittle the Duchess. I am sure that does not make your own plight any easier to bear."

This time, the young girl was slow to hide the irritation and grief that he caused her with his words. _Good, it will help her understand_.

"Consider then, miss Vallière, that your mother thinks herself better than those who do not share her opinions and ideals, including a large majority of Tristain's nobility. And it is not in her character to keep such opinions a secret or to compromise in anything, perhaps even in the face of Armageddon."

"Sir, I fear that I don't follow you. What has my mother to do with...?"

"Everything! Behaviour like hers would be downright dangerous for anybody less extraordinary and powerful than she is. She is respected by all, but liked by few. And feared by many and hated by some. And it is her many enemies, both overt and secret, that are going to make this situation very complicated indeed."

"...You have lost me again, sir"

Osmond raised an eyebrow and looked the girl straight in the eye. She looked... downright earnest. Was she _really_ this naive? It would explain a number of things, if Karin had decided to show her daughter some kindness by leaving her in blessed ignorance about some of the uglier facts of life.

_Oh well. If it's that, somebody was going to pop that bubble one of these days. I might as well do it myself and try to be gentle about it. _

* * *

><p>Tabitha reached for the plate with the chocolate biscuits and feeling not the slightest bit ashamed she picked two, one of which disappeared in an instant. <em>Mmm... chocolate<em>. She had always had a bit of a sweet tooth, but in recent times she hadn't had many chances to indulge herself, because of the generosity (or, rather, the total lack thereof) of her patrons.

But then, between books and sweets, the right choice had been obvious.

She nibbled the second biscuit, allowing herself to savor it, before washing it away with a sip of coffee. It was Helvetian dark chocolate, unless she missed her guess. Good stuff. And quite expensive, too. The headmaster (or whoever kept Old Osmond's private stash stocked up) obviously had an eye for quality and no budgetary constraints.

She didn't really know why the old man had decided to include her in these deliberations, but between the food and the titbits she was learning just by being here... she was almost enjoying herself. At the very least, the gossip about the Vallières ought to should keep Isabella off her back for a few weeks and _that_ would be worth more than rubies. And... who knew? Maybe the headmaster would remain in a loose-lipped mood for the rest of the evening and let something actually important slip.

"The Duchess is not complicated, but she is difficult for those at court to understand. I have already praised her magical prowess, but she is also the driving force of the third greatest noble house in Tristain, as well as the former mentor of the commander of the Griffin Knights. And though she no longer holds military rank, it is widely acknowledged that she still has the loyalty of the officers of the manticore knights. That is... a great deal of power. A _very_ great deal of power. Which she refuses to use. She refuses to play the Game of Lords. And that infuriates to no end the fops who live for and by the Game, and who dream with the day in which they will be able to use your mother and her power for their..."

Vallière then interruped Osmond's soliloquy with something that sounded like a snort and Tabitha turned her head to regard her fellow student. Louise had covered her mouth with both hands and the scrutiny made her face redden, but still the sound of muffled giggling escaped from behind her hands. It took her perhaps a couple of minutes to compose herself and explain her outburst, without the laughter beginning anew.

"My apologies, sir. It is just that the idea of someone trying to _use_ mother is simply too ridiculous for words."

_There are ways._

When Vallière looked at her with a raised eyebrow, Tabitha realized that she had spoken out loud. Mentally kicking herself for her carelessness, she picked a biscuit and resumed her eating sweets, doing her best to ignore the stares of the others.

* * *

><p>"Now, as I was saying, many would use the Duchess' power for their own purposes. And some would rather see that power and the potential threat it poses disappear for good. Yes, Miss Vallière, don't look at me like that. There <em>are<em> cliques in court that nurse old grudges and would jump at the chance to ruin the fortunes of your august family. Not all the supporters of the traitor Eustace were dealt with during his rebellion."

Jean Colbert tuned out Osmond's voice and closed his eyes.

He was upset, uneasy, on edge.

Part of it was the usual aftermath of a serious fight in which he had thrown around large amounts of lethal magic. Part of it was discovering that under the shy, mousey shell he had built over nineteen years, the instincts and spell of the man he had been once were as strong as ever. And part of it -the larger part- was something that he had realized all of a sudden and which filled him with rage and horror.

For mastery of Fire requires being keenly sensitive to the slightest variations in temperature and though Colbert wasn't and had never been an Inflamer, mages who use the subtlest Fire spells to soothe or excite the emotions of other men, but even so he could usually tell what those around him were feeling through the changes in their body temperature. And, just for a fleeting moment, Miss Tabitha had _burned_ with fury.

_There are ways._

That had been the voice of experience.

Which made a disturbing amount of sense considering some of what he had seen her do during the fight earlier. Her attacks had been clever, economic and, above all, lethal in intent. He had seen no signs of the fancy, wasteful wandwork that was the hallmark of the aficionado. All in all, the conclusion was obvious. The little girl in front of him was a professional and a fine one, at that. And seeing the emotions boiling underneath her... she hadn't been a willing participant.

Well. That wouldn't do.

Because Jean was protective of the things he held precious. In the past, that had been Tristain and to protect it from the plague he had incinerated Angleterre, along with its people. He had been deceived by those he had admired, then, and that had shattered his faith in the kingdom he had sworn to serve and protect. For quite some time, he had been a man broken and without purpose, until he had found something new to protect.

His pupils.

To save the life of one, he would give his life.

To save Tabitha from whatever pained her, he would... What? Die? Kill? He'd have to think about it. Make sure that his gut feelings were right.

"And, of course, besmirching the reputation of a Great House is not a particularly easy task in the best of days. They cannot be too open about it without showing themselves to be clumsy in the ways of manipulation and that's a kind of weakness that no player of the Game can afford. Moreso for those who try to dirty Karin's reputation. The woman is the living embodiment of..."

"Loyalty is the word I'd use, headmaster."

"Certainly. Thank you, professor. Yes, even those who oppose her know better than to try to question the strength of Karin's loyalty."

* * *

><p>The mood in the room had grown serious, grave. Kirche's blue haired friend seemed to be feeling taciturn and her eating speed had slowed down noticeably. Mister Colbert had been staring at his cup for a couple of minutes, sometimes looking up for a few seconds to observe them with strangely intense eyes.<p>

"However..."

Even Old Osmond's voice had grown softer, as if he was struggling with the heavy silence. To be honest, Louise herself didn't yet understand the whole point of the long explanation and what it had to do with her, but she could feel the cold weight of dread growing in her belly. The old man certainly seemed gravely concerned, and since he was talking so candidly about matters of such gravity... Well, Louise saw no reasonable course, except to accept his words until she had the opportunity to verify their truthfulness independently.

"This world we live in is not a perfect one, as we all know. And though no one would question the strength of Karin's loyalty, they can question other aspects of it. For example, the Duchess is a woman who has more than one loyalty. She is loyal to the crown, to the country and to your family, at least. There might be other loyalties in her still, but for my example those three will more than do."

Louise nodded, firmly. It actually was a fair description of her mother.

"For many years now, the interests of those three things have been perfectly aligned. For many years, the crown has been in capable hands and ruled in ways that have been of no small benefit for the realm as a whole and that has been possible in part because the Vallières have been ever-vigilant protectors of the kingdom. But this alignment of interests is not a fixed law of nature. Rather, it is a coincidence, arisen from a highly specific political situation that is no more these days."

She opened her mouth to interrupt, re-considered and closed it again. She had never really entertained the thought and it was... difficult to imagine a situation in which the crown and the Vallières wouldn't see eye to eye, but she could accept that such a situation would be possible.

"Here and now, the crown no longer rules. Power rests in the hands of Mazarini. And though he is certainly a shrewd man with a mind sharp like a dagger, he is largely disliked by commoners and nobility alike. Because he is a capable man, because the queen mother trusts him implicitly, because he is a man of the Church or because he hails from Romalia. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains. The Cardinal's position is not as firm as he'd like and that's something distinctly dangerous -for him and maybe for Tristain too- now that he seeks alliance with Germania against the rebel vermin that plagues the White Country."

The girl grimaced, as if she had swallowed vinegar. She had heard the rumours -it was impossible not to these days-, but she had hoped that they would turn out to be false. However, if even the headmaster was stating them as if they were true... May the Founder doom those Albionese blackguards who had dared to rebel against their legitimate liege lords and forced Tristain to request an alliance with the barbarians.

"Now consider this. Carefully. The fortunes of your family will take a turn for the worse in the close future if Mazarini manages to secure his alliance. The Vallières have been Tristain's shield against Germania for over a century now, but the alliance will make this service to the realm redundant for the time being. And that's without considering the not at all inconsiderable amount of noble Germanian blood (chiefly von Zerbst) that your family has shed in Tristain's defense. It is alarmingly likely that some kind of compensation from your family to its Germanian enemies will be demanded by that thuggish oaf they call an emperor."

Alarming, indeed. Surely mother already knew about all this and had taken steps to prepare for the situation. Surely.

She would have to find the time to send home a letter before going to bed tonight, however. Just to make certain.

"So, in this situation, what does your mother do? What do her loyalties demand? Does she meekly accept something that could greatly harm your family's position, in exchange for an alliance that the crown's right hand man thinks will be a net positive for our small country? Or do the certain negatives to your family outweigh the positives for the realm? Is her loyalty to the crown strong enough that she trusts a Romalian to have the best interests of Tristain in his heart? The answer to these and many other such questions are worth more than rubies.

Louise considered and tried to decide what she would do in a situation like what the headmaster was describing. She found that she couldn't. She felt a chill run down her spine.

"And so it is that not only those who actively wish your mother or family ill are cause of concern, but also those who'd lose much should the current balance of power in Court be upset. I've few doubts in this point. Many in Court, and Mazarini chief among them, will want to test how your mother's loyalty to her own flesh and blood compares to her loyalty to those in power."

_Her own flesh and...? Oh no. No. No. Please, no._

"And they are going to use you, Louise, to do so."

She opened her mouth again, to ask a question, raise an objection, anything... But Louise found herself suddenly wordless and, finally overwhelmed by the traumatic events of the last hours, she started crying, as she hadn't since earliest childhood.

* * *

><p>Hundreds of feet beneath the Academy, there was something that hadn't been there the day before.<p>

A deep chasm in the ground had been opened and a spheric chamber some twenty feet wide carved out of the bedrock at its bottom. Then, a number of powerful and ingenious spells had been cast, something had been put inside the sphere and the chasm had been closed again, leaving the said thing trapped below inside its capsule of magically toughened stone.

In the underground cell, the familiar summoned by Miss Vallière now floated in the center of the prison, held in place by six different sources of gravitic force that simultaneously pulled up, down, left, right, back and front. A cunning arrangement conceived and implemented by Old Osmond using his great mastery of Earth magics, who hoped -by preventing direct contact between the "mummy" and the element that empowered its kind- to keep the creature weak and tractable after the effects of the Torpor finally faded.

And, if the creature woke up and was still strong enough to break out, it would find itself in the midst of its natural element and that would perhaps be enough to make it forget any thoughts about unleashing bloody retribution against the closest humans. Maybe. In truth, it all was conjecture and fearful hope.

Spirits were... poorly understood. Inhuman in nature, thought and demeanour. Little was known of even those who deigned to commune with humans, such as the Ragnorian undine. And gnomes, the spirits of rock and dirt, were the most withdrawn (and therefore least known) of the elemental spirits.

So, in the whole, the hour of the mummy's awakening was awaited with a very great deal of trepidation and no small amount of dread by the few in the know, for all that young Louise had apparently managed to brand it with Contract Familiar.

Wasted worry.

The Torpor hadn't yet surrendered its claim over the sleeping familiar and it wouldn't for quite some time yet, in alliance with the exhaustion -physical, magical, and emotional- of its victim and the magic of ancient runes that sought to make their bearer pliable for their creator.

For the time being and a long time to come, Noximilien Coxen would dream.

Not Nox. Not the unfeeling, half-mad monster who was more metal than man and whose hands were covered with the blood of thousands.

In the land of dreams, he had never stopped being Noximilien, a decent man with a loving family who was happy and wanted nothing.

The runes could work with that. Nox was too rigid, too broken, too... Nox to be of use. But Noximilien could be nudged towards the surface and with just the slightest adjustment...

A dream of children playing under the summer sun _changed_. A young girl's dark blonde hair slowly lightened until it became strawberry blonde and her features altered ever so slowly. The faint memory of the young girl kissing her papa was replaced by a much more recent kiss. And Noximilien just laughed, happier than ever.

The limited intelligence that guided the magic of the runes waited for a few moments, but after finding no signs of rejection, it continued its tireless work.

* * *

><p>High in the sky, above the clouds, the island of Albion slept under the light of the moons.<p>

It was a particularly clear night in Londinium, formerly seat of the kings of the White Country and still the capital now that the glorious revolution had freed most of the country from their yoke. As a matter of fact, clear skies were a novelty for the city and one of the few things most people agreed to be a good thing. Indeed, Londinium had long been justly infamous for its smog, a unique blend of normal mist and smoke belched by a myriad chimneys combined to create a distinctly unwholesome, fairly odorous vapour. Visitors who might have thought the peculiarity quaint or even vaguely romantic, where quickly disabused of such notions after their first encounter with the smog.

And, following the disaster at Northgate, when royalist dragon knights had managed to steal into the city under the cover of the smog, and burned the gunpowder storehouses there to the ground (and started a fire that had claimed damn near the whole district), Lord Cromwell had decided to do away with the fog. It exhausted the willpower of two dozen lines to clear the skies every night and paying them cost the government a pretty penny, so it was likely that now that the military need was gone with the last royalists bottled up in Newcastle, the smog would be allowed to reclaim its domain.

Regardless, the people of Londinium were practical folks and most intended to enjoy their coughing-free nights for as long as they lasted.

That was probably why few enough actually saw the lightning bolt that illuminated the night sky for a split second, despite its enormous size, and the several thousand that were woken up by the thunder were too late to be witness to anything, except for those residing near the Alperhill Naval Yards. Some of those living in the area saw the old sixth rate _Drake_ crashland south of the base, its hull gored before it touched the ground.

The _Londinium Gazette_ would publish a couple days later that the old ship had been struck by lightning while approaching the docks, where it was scheduled to be dismantled anyway after the damage it had sustained during the Battle of Denbigh was deemed too severe to return the vessel to combat duties. By the blessing of the Founder, said the official periodical, there had been no loss of life during the incident, as the crew had managed to evacuate prior to the crash.

This was enough to satisfy most everyone, except for the guards of Alperhill who had to work overtime to keep the curious and idle away from the shipwreck. Few so much as paused to consider that the _Drake_ had been speared by lightning during a cloudless night and fewer still ever realized that the frigate had been hit from the side, rather than from above.

However, for some time, the full truth about the incident and its true nature would be known to only a few. Barely half an hour after the incident, most of those few were holding a meeting in the Lord Protector's private office and congratulating themselves about a job well done.

"I trust that the reinforcement spells had been laid out correctly?" asked one man, while looking into the depths of his wine cup. He was Cromwell, the Lord Protector.

"I oversaw everything, personally, and made sure that those mercenaries did the work they were paid for. We layered as many spells as we could, then tested it with a fourty two pounder and the shot bounced back. I, for one, am certain that mister Gilbert's wonder weapon has performed just as promised," said Mansell, newly appointed Treasurer of the Fleet, who was smiling with the giddiness of a man who has seen a risky bet pay off.

The Gilbert affair had been a thorny matter between Mansell and Brooke, the previous Treasurer, who had wished for months to take away funding from what he had considered a foolish waste of resources and had ultimately done so, using the money to make some more of the new long range cannons. However, Mansell had been willing to bankroll Gilbert's prototype out of pocket and now that the device had proven its worth... Well, Brooke had just been asked to resign and now his opponent had control over the finances of Albion's air-fleet.

"Actually, sir, it did not work quite as well as I had hoped. Range was within parameters and it was just as powerful as we had calculated, but there is room for improvement in regards to accuracy and..."

"Please, mister Gilbert, you know that I am unable to understand the details of your invention," interrupted Cromwell with a wave of his hand, addressing the third man in the room.

William Gilbert was an old, disturbingly bony man, but his eyes showed the spark of a fierce intelligence and an indomitable spirit. By all accounts, he was one of the most learned men of the nation and a notoriously quarrelsome fellow. He was also a commoner, which in combination with the previous qualities had resulted in him spending several years either in prison or in exile, escaping graver consequences only thanks to his wits.

Famously, he had been successful in his efforts to persuade the members of a religious court who had been trying him for crimes of blasphemy about the correctness of his assertions.

However, he had had less luck in his dealings with the House of Tudor. Both James the First and his late, unlamented father Henry the Third had hated the man with a passion, because they deemed his natural philosophy as nothing but a ploy to learn the secrets of magic and teach them to those deemed unworthy by the Founder. Really, it was no wonder that the old man had joined the rebellion during its early stages, when defeat at the hands of the loyalists had seemed certain.

His efforts then and his efforts now had given and would give the forces of Reconquista many victories against their enemies. He was certainly committed to the cause, much more than most of the nobility. He was also useful. Still, Cromwell couldn't help but feel that there was something faintly distasteful about the old commoner.

_No matter_, he thought, seeing Gilbert wipe his forehead with a handkerchief. It wouldn't be long now.

* * *

><p>Slowly, the meeting in Cromwell's office turned into a small celebration of sorts. Wine had already been there while they discussed about the new weapon, but afterwards it started appearing in larger quantities, along with stronger spirits and platters full of delicious morsels, carried by no less delicious maids. The new uniforms that had replaced the traditional apparel of the royal servants had been designed with a clear purpose in mind and it showed.<p>

Indeed, compared with previous rulers of Albion, the Lord Protector did remarkably little to hide from the eyes of his acquaintances his small sins. Admittedly, said small sins weren't even remotely as alarming as those of some of the aforementioned predecessors.

The scent of roses, the gay laughter, the excellent food and the strong drinks didn't need long to leave most everyone feeling suitably festive. Sebastian Hopsky, Cromwell's secretary, turned his ivory wand into a flute and eventually persuaded several lords to sing the lyrics of the national anthem, while he played the music. The result of this exercise was strident, out of tune and loudly proclaimed a vast improvement over the official version by those who heard it.

And then, roughly one hour after the start of the party, William Gilbert died.

The first sign was a sharp stab of pain that made the old scholar put a hand in his chest and weakly ask for a cup of cold wine. A maid that had been offering him little pieces of roasted duck with pear sauce went for the drink and came back a couple of minutes later. By then, Gilbert had paled and when he tried to take the cup he was offered, it slipped from the grasp of fingers that had lost all strength.

The vigorous cursing of the count of Leeds, whose expensive silk clothes had been ruined by the spilled wine, focused the attention of everyone on the nobleman and Gilbert. Attention turned into alarm when some realized that the paleness and trembling of the septuagenarian had nothing to do with the wrath of an irate nobleman.

"It is the heart! He is suffering from a heart attack!" shouted Hopsky.

Alarmed shouting and a great deal of confusion ensued, until Cromwell slammed his empty glass against his own desk repeteadly. This made him the center of attention and gave him the opportunity to restore some order with a few quick orders.

"We need a doctor at once. Bring doctor Harrison!" commanded the lord Protector. "Any of you has any knowledge about healing? It might be some minutes until Harrison arrives. Keeping mister Gilbert alive meanwhile is _our_ responsability!"

Alas, water magic was a rarity in Albion. Only two of those present, a line and a triangle, were water mages, and the triangle knew nothing but the most basic, most crude of healing spells. That left treatment in the hands of Richard Stuart of the Philosophical Society, who had been a healer in the fleet way back in the day.

"But I abandoned medicine over twenty years ago! I never studied internal medicine, lord! My very attempts to save him could very well kill him!" he protested, futilely.

"Just try to keep him alive until my personal healer arrives, sir. That's all I am asking you to try."

"If you insist... so be it. But I think that it would have been better to wait for Harrison."

Obeying Stuart's indications, a table was cleared and Gilbert was put atop it. Next, he checked the old man's breathing with a mirror and finding it faint, requested that lord Marchester, a triangle of air with a well deserved reputation for extreme accuracy in the use of his magic, keep a steady flow of air towards Gilbert's lungs. Next, Stuart tried to check the pulse and finding none, he started pressing the patient's chest every couple of seconds, while cursing like a sailor.

When Cromwell asked the purpose of his very odd actions, Stuart replied without stopping his efforts.

"It is called chest massage, sir. During his exploration of the coasts of the northern ocean, captain Higgins reported that the barbarians who live there use this when their fishermen fall into the water. Those are bitterly cold waters, that can drain the heat from a man and freeze the heart. By pressing the chest like this, they make the heart keep beating and so the blood keeps flowing and heat is eventually restored. The Society had researched the claim with volunteers and if we do this, a heart that has stopped sometimes can be made to beat again, particularly if the patient is young and strong. Master Gilbert is neither, but there are more possibilities of keeping him alive with this than with magic. Keeping his blood flowing magically requires a much more delicate touch than my own."

Cromwell, looking more than faintly troubled, merely nodded and left Stuart and his helpers to their life saving efforts.

In the end, it was all for nothing. By the time doctor Harrison arrived, still clad in his night clothes, the only thing he could do for Gilbert was to certify his death.

* * *

><p>Some time later, things had changed somewhat in the Lord Protector's quarters, although the actors remained largely the same for the time being.<p>

The late William Gilbert still rested on the table upon which he had breathed his last, though Cromwell had ordered that the grim reminder of human mortality be covered with some curtains, as to avoid unduly distressing some of his guests. The maids had been sent away with stern warnings not to start gossiping about the unfortunate happenings of the last hour, although this was probably a lost cause. Doctor Harrison had left, too, in order to take care of the formalities and arrange the relocation of the corpse to a more suitable place.

As for the guests, they had been busy discussing the possible consequences of the old scholar's death, while a so far silent Cromwell sat behind his desk, playing with a small crystal ball with his right hand and holding a glass of fine wine with his left.

"No, no, _no_. We _haven't_ lost the lightning cannon," half shouted a red faced Mansell for what must have been the seventh time. The man had overindulged a bit during the earlier party and, judging by his increasingly irate answers, he was an angry drunk. "We have the prototype, we have his notes, we have the schematics and we have two Crafters that were taught by Gilbert himself, just in case. I _insisted_ that we take care of such things as a condition for funding his proposal and Gilbert agreed straightaway. Old man must have known that his time was coming."

"I'm glad that he saw his work completed before he died, then."

"And I am just glad that all that money didn't go to waste."

And for a few minutes everything continued along the same lines, until Cromwell finished his wine and then slammed the glass down hard enough to break it, after putting in a drawer the crystal ball he had been playing with. He rose with the face of someone who smells something particularly foul.

"You disgust me, my friends. The still warm body of a great man rests in front of us and you... talk of money, of influence, of power with no thought given to the grievous loss we have suffered? Do you have hearts or did you all sell it to put some coins in your moneybags? We are supposed to be the leaders of a _holy_ cause, the very men who shall guide humanity in the Reconquista of what was taken from our ancestors. I suggest that we try to behave like the noblemen we claim to be, rather than a pack of carrion birds.

The angry voice and cutting remarks of Albion's ruler came as a surprise to pretty much everyone and a heavy silence claimed the room. After judging the effect of his initial words with a sad, bitter smile, Cromwell continued.

"Better. Much, _much_ better. Let's now talk about the business at hand, then. For starters, mister Mansell... Your foresight gives you credit and makes you deserving of reward. And rewarded you shall be once our continued capacity to make these wondrous weapons is confirmed. Just don't repeat the story before the night is over again or there will be consequences. Severe, _unpleasant_ consequences. Other than that, the project is in your hands now and hope to hear good news within a few days."

"As for master Gilbert... he shall be buried in Londinium's cathedral. With all the honors usually reserved for Peers of the Realm. And I want to hear no objections. It won't be the first time this is done for a common born who has done extraordinary things in the service of the nation and William Gilbert is far more deserving of this honor than many of those currently resting within those walls. Honestly, if the man had had even a drop of noble blood in his body, I would have seriously considered him worthy of experiencing the glory of the Rebirth."

_That_ broke the silence and replaced it with muttering. Mostly muttering filled with disbelief, but also more than a little anger. Those who had been invited to this meeting were loyal among the loyals. Every last one of them a man who had joined forces with the rebellion during the dreadful first months of the civil war, before general Exeter had crossed the Alvan and seized Wardhill in a swift, bloody move that had robbed the loyalists of their momentum. Be it by greedy ambition or honest devotion, they were the few who had proven their loyalty beyond all doubt.

To hear their leader talk of granting the greatest of rewards to a dead commonborn, even in terms of 'if only'... Well, it was an insult in the eyes of more than a few of the guests and it showed in their faces.

"The bishop will not do it, sir. He hated master Gilbert, personally, and he has published at least... half a dozen, I think. Half a dozen papers arguing against allowing the commonborn access to the study of philosophy or science. He honestly thinks that natural philosophy is a hidden heresy," said Hopsky, perhaps hoping for a change in topic.

"If he knows what's good for him, he will not refuse. We have not removed him from his position, in spite of his open loyalty to the royals, because we don't particularly want to alienate the Romalians. But he will bow in this or he will spend a few days as a guest, in the Tower, and I will handle the ceremony myself. And that's all that I will say about this. Did mister Gilbert have family?"

"His wife died ten years ago or so and I think he had no sons. I think that he lived with a slightly older sister, however."

"Check it. If there was family that depended on him economically, we can maybe see about setting up a pension for them. Something adequate, but not particularly outrageous. We cannot afford outrageous right now, I am afraid."

Some few minutes later, Cromwell declared the meeting at an end and asked to be left alone. As soon as the last guests left, he locked the door and cast half a dozen spells to ensure the required levels of privacy in the next few moments.

He approached the covered form and yanked away the curtain, revealing Gilbert's still form. Without further ado, he pressed his right hand against the old man's cooling chest and started muttering an incantation.

There was not a lot to repair. The poison in the wine which had caused the heart attack had been a subtle thing, more commonly used as an aphrodisiac. Almost tasteless, swiftly absorbed by the body and obscure enough that most poison-cleansing spells missed it, it had been an inspired choice to end Gilbert's life. The concentration had been low enough that no one else had been in serious risk, although his guests would surely find themselves struggling against the urge to satisfy certain carnal wants, but it had been perfect against a thin, frail old man with a known fondness of heavy drinking.

Cromwell counted his heartbeat. One, two... Before he reached ten, the body that had been William Gilbert's shuddered and opened its eyes.

"Do not talk. Do not move. Heed my words. You are to remain still for the next few days, doing everything you can to appear the corpse you are supposed to be. This command ends the moment you are removed from your tomb. If those who do this bear the symbols of Gallia, obey them as you would obey me. And if they don't identify themselves in this fashion, kill them and go to Norringham, to the Red Fox Inn. There, you will find a scarred man with a green cloak who will give you further instructions. That is all."

Without a nod, without a word, Gilbert closed his eyes. The Lord Protector covered him once again and released the magic he had cast earlier.

With a heavy sigh, Cromwell poured himself a glass of brandy and started drinking, gaze lost in the distance. After some time, he looked up and nodded in greeting.

"It is done."

"Excellent," replied the woman, whom only Cromwell could see and hear.

* * *

><p>It is known by many names. To different individuals in different places, it is known as the Beyond, the Other Realm, the Between, the Dreamlands and many, many other names. In the World of Twelve, those who study the nature of the universe call it the Astral Plane.<p>

It is the part of the cosmic whole that exists half-way between the material universe in which mortals dwell and the transcendent domains of the divine, a conduit through which the cosmic wakfu flows in its eternal cycle, a subtle realm sometimes visited by dreamers when reality's hold over the waking mind is at its weakest.

Souls come and go through the astral domain, dragged by the wakfu flow, even if some linger in the regions closer to the material world as ghosts and related types of specters. Those who still draw breath sometimes make their way to the astral plane through magic or extraordinary circumstance. Nevertheless, it is no place for the living.

Unlike the transcendent realms, which in some cases have been shaped and fashioned by beings who think in ways that are comprehensible to mortals, no divine or infernal power has ever claimed dominion over the Dreamlands.

Time is largely meaningless and distance completely so, for travel is essentially impossible here without supernatural means of locomotion. Someone stranded here could walk for a subjective eternity without perceiving nothing but boundless whiteness, while only a few seconds pass in the world outside.

All the same, some things exist in this dimension in which only the loosest definitions of existence hold, including a number of individuals who for a variety of reasons have ended stranded in their current, utterly unenviable situation. But there are other, larger anomalies in here.

Emrub is one such anomaly, one of the largest and oldest.

It is essentially a self-contained bubble of reality that floats in the vast sea of nothingness that is the astral. Its construction was one of the great accomplishments of the eliatropes, who meant it to be a refuge of last resort should they ever be found again by the mechasms.

As it turned out, the mechasm leader Orgonax found them and his attack was so swift, so fierce, that most of the eliatropes perished before they could evacuate. In the end, only a few thousand of their children were sent to Emrub for safety, under the protection of the ancient dragon Baltazar, until Orgonax was defeated.

But when Orgonax was finally defeated at the summit of the Zinit, few of the eliatropes or their dragon brothers remained, and those few lacked the means, the power, or the knowledge to open a path through the subtle realms to Emrub. Meanwhile, those in Emrub couldn't even try to blaze a way back without risking the total collapse of their pocket reality.

For this reason, Baltazar has held up the walls against the nothingness for thousands of years, slowly burning his own life in the process and turning into an unlikely vision of old age and decrepitude. If things were any different, he would have let go of life long ago, allowing his wakfu to return to his dofus for a long delayed rebirth, but he has resisted the call and hoped against hope for a change for the good.

And it would seem that his hopes have been answered.

* * *

><p>Once more, the old dragon tried to find a comfortable position upon his floating cushion. Once more, he failed. It was an adequate seat for someone the size and shape of a human, less so for an adult dragon. <em>Particularly for a dragon gone old, fat, and clumsy<em>, he thought.

_What was I thinking when I made this thing?_

Baltazar sighed. Of course, he knew perfectly well what he had been thinking. In the first place, he had only made it because Zora had browbeaten him into finding a new way to travel through Emrub, after seeing him crash one too many times and forcing him to grudgingly admit that his wings weren't what they used to be anymore.

But that had been a long time ago now. When he had made the cushion for the first time, he still had plenty of strength left. A lot more than he had now, at any rate, and he had felt that he could afford shrinking himself to a humanoid form for a matter of simple comfort.

Not anymore. Not anymore.

Each hour spent in a shape not his own, Emrub lost a day of potential existence... And there weren't all that many days left that they could afford such extravagance.

With a sigh, Baltazar stopped his futile quest for comfortable seating and tried to focus in the now. Losing himself in memories had been a concern in recent times. The children had told him that sometimes he stood still with eyes open, but looking at nothing, for hours on end. It was not just the body now. The mind and the soul were starting to give up, finally.

Well, there was nothing for it.

With the greatest care, Baltazar moved his cushion closer to the false sky that was the true outer boundary of Emrub.

Existing outside the universe with no escape route was an uncomfortable position to live in, but all the same this unique situation was not without its advantages. Here, some things that were altogether impossible to do in the world below were... not easy, but feasible.

Here, sharp enough senses could perceive the cosmic whole of the great flow of wakfu and find within individual strands, if one knew how. With that and a little bit of magic, one could spy on the happenings of the material universe.

There were limitations, of course. In the whole, it was a crude, limited window and keeping it open cost a lot of effort.

But crude and limited as it was, it was Emrub's last connection to the material universe and the source of the knowledge that just today had put to rest Baltazar's mounting fears.

The last few years had been more intense for him than the five previous centuries. Everyone in Emrub had rejoiced when he had announced the rebirth of Yugo and Adamai, and they had frequently observed them growing up.

Then, things had taken a turn for the worse earlier this year with the appeareance of a powerful mage, an energy vampire who had somehow managed to claim the power of the Eliacube for himself.

When Grougaloragran had ended his own life, after being defeated by the mage, Baltazar and the children had been certain that they were doomed. In spite of this, there had been some relief in knowing that Yugo, Adamai and their companions had been saved by being sent away before the battle, but even that had turned into darkest dread when the mage had attacked the forest kingdom in which Yugo's friends had taken refuge at the head of an army of war-machines.

Including at least one with _definite_ Mechasm influence in its design. Baltazar was certain.

That the mage was not the target had been small consolation when they saw Yugo and Adamai made their way into their enemy's mechanical stronghold.

They had battled him and then...

Baltazar was not sure of what had happened then. Some great working of magic had been performed then and as a mere side effect they had been completely blinded.

Shortly after, however, they had seen the mage defeated, _somehow_. His stronghold had crumbled, his machines had died and his attempts to abuse the Eliacube had triggered a backlash.

And then he had escaped away from the king, leaving behind the Eliacube. Elation was too small a word for what they all had felt seeing the ancient machine in the hands of the king at long last. Even now the children of Emrub were celebrating.

As far as they were concerned, it was over. Sure, it would be a few years yet. Yugo would have to mature into his powers, before he could hope to master the Eliacube safely. But once he did, he'd encounter records about Emrub and learn how to rescue the last survivors of his people.

Just a few years more.

_Why am I not partying, again?_

Because his old intuition had prickled him into following the scent of the defeated mage. Did his subconscious perhaps perceive him as a danger to the king still?

He wasn't sure, but thanks to it he had been able to perceive how the king's enemy had been taken by a force. A force that was both distressingly familiar in its nature and utterly unfamiliar in its fine detail.

The origin and destination of the magic that had seized the mage had been something of a surprise, since he was expecting one of the lower realms to be the source, but a surprise he'd have rather done without.

And then there had been a jumble of strands. Magic fighting. More than any of the others, however, one of the lesser strands of wakfu had commanded his attention.

He hadn't been sure... could _not_ be sure of his visualization here.

And so he had remained here, at the edge of Emrub, collecting what particles of the right wakfu he could find here to solidify the image.

He had allowed the particles to travel through his soul, drawing energy from himself, clumping together, until finally there was enough to give them a semblance of substance. A difficult trick, but one that Baltazar had been forced to improve upon over thousands of years.

Taking his pipe, the old dragon lit it with a tiny spark. Slowly, the smoke emitted started forming an image in front of the eyes of Baltazar, under the dual influence of his will and the wakfu pattern he had built. It was a frozen scene, with no color and no sound, lacking in fine detail.

Some revelations, however, require none of those things. And the dragon had one when he finally identified the source of the wakfu that had claimed his attention over the others, thanks to a small smoke sculpture of what was unmistakably a dragon.

"Phaeris!" exclaimed Baltazar, after a few moments of dumbfounded incredulity. "You did it! You found them!"

END OF CHAPTER 2.

* * *

><p><span>Notes<span>: Well, after twenty months, this is back.

If someone finds this chapter unfocused or unclear, that is probably becuase it was written in a very haphazard way. Some degree of refining is almost certain to take place at some point in the future.


End file.
